


you said you feel like a bruise (on a beautiful body)

by Antonius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Discord: Bellamione Coven Valentine’s Event, Drama, F/F, Good Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sane Bellatrix Black Lestrange, graphic description of an open wound, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29390595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antonius/pseuds/Antonius
Summary: Bellamione Coven Discord Valentine's Event 2021Prompt:"We have to stop meeting like this", one said to the other when the elevator they were in got stuck between floors for the third time in as many weeks.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 18
Kudos: 108





	1. and all the damage you do

**Author's Note:**

> to my LJBC readers: yes, i know you see that this isn't an update. please don't yell, i am very small; once i get on some adhd meds [hopefully soon! actively working on it!] it is OVER for you hoes. but, like, in a good way, a cool way where i have Focus™ and where you ever find out what the hell the Skanks are up to.

Under normal conditions, the fact that the Ministry of Magic existed under a universal anti-apparition ward was a non-issue at best and a slight inconvenience at worst. _ But, _ Hermione thinks with a huff as she fruitlessly wills the lift to move once again,  _ these are not normal conditions. _

The war had been over for nearly a decade. The tales of double agent Bellatrix Lestrange were overshadowed only by the equally legendary tales of double agent Severus Snape, both of whom endured the post-war limelight just long enough to be formally absolved of responsibility for anything they had done while in service of the Order of the Phoenix, receive their Orders of Merlin (First Class), and then very purposefully disappear entirely from public life.

Snape had returned to Hogwarts, gladly leaving the running of the school to Minerva McGonagall and taking a permanent post, at long last, as the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Bellatrix had instead accepted a role as an Unspeakable, and by the very nature of the work of the Department of Mysteries, was afforded the relative peace of a perpetual  _ No Comment. _

_ And just my luck_, Hermione thinks, bitterly, _ that after years spent easily avoiding her as much as possible, I should end up trapped alone with her. In the lift. _ She blows an angry breath up into her bangs.  _ How very...muggle of me. This is what I get for not looking at who’s in the lift before stepping in. _

“Oh, bloody hell,  _ Granger,” _ a voice drawls from just a few feet behind her. “What’re you trying to do,  _ blow _ the lift up a floor? The wards’ll let someone know that it’s stuck soon enough.” Hermione hears her conjure something that clatters noisily on the ground. “Might as well make yourself comfortable until it’s resolved.”

Without looking over, Hermione steps back to the corner directly behind her and tries to get comfortable leaning into the wall. She barely has time to properly rest her weight against it before a chuckle interrupts her movements.

“Don’t even pretend that’s going to be comfortable, pet. Stuck lifts are hardly a priority.” Bellatrix waves her wand lazily in Hermione’s peripheral vision and a small, cushioned wooden stool manifests at Hermione’s feet. “We’re going to be here a while.” Hermione’s left arm twitches involuntarily.

_ Great. _

Hermione nudges the stool with her foot, not trusting Bellatrix to keep from playing some kind of prank on her where the stool vanishes as soon as it’s touched. When it doesn’t puff out of existence she reluctantly moves over and sits down, averting her eyes all the while.

“What’s wrong, Golden Girl?” Bellatrix mock-pouts. “Not much for conversation these days?”

“No comment.”

“Oh,  _ how cute!” _ Bellatrix cackles, the sound seeming even louder in the small space. Hermione twitches again, unwillingly reminded of another time. Another place. She speaks, almost without meaning to.

“...Your laugh is still exactly the same...”

“The same as what?” Bellatrix asks, still chuckling. Hermione’s expression darkens, though she still keeps her gaze fixed on the floor. “What, you’re not still mad about  _ the War, _ are you?” Bellatrix scoffs. “I was on  _ your side, _ you know.  _ We won.” _

Hermione now scoffs in turn. “Yes.  _ ‘We’ _ won. And you got away with everything.”

Bellatrtix’s amused tone is gone now. “And what, pray tell, is  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

“All those horrible things you did.” Hermione stares daggers into the floor. “You never had to answer for them.”

“I have  _ nothing _ to answer for,” Bellatrix says, her tone cold. “I never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

Hermione’s answer is very quiet.

“Perhaps. But even if that were true, there are...well.” She swallows. “Some things are worse than dying.”

Bellatrix isn’t an idiot—it may have been ten years ago, but only one thing would make Hermione say that to her. She sets her jaw, ready to defend her actions.

“...Cissy knew I was spying for the old man, but Rod and dear old Lucius were there, as well. I did what I had to do.” Hermione makes no move to respond, so Bellatrix continues. “You were an enemy—”

_ “—I WAS A TEENAGER,” _ Hermione spits out, finally looking up at Bellatrix, her eyes rimmed with red from the effort required to keep from crying. Bellatrix purses her lips at the sight. “I was a  _ teenager, _ a  _ child soldier _ in a  _ fucking war, _ and you tortured me on the floor of your sister’s house  **_for no fucking reason!”_ **

Bellatrix rises to her feet in the tiny space but moves no closer, instead pacing from the front of the lift to the rear, gesturing wildly as she speaks.

_ “Of course I did! _ I couldn’t very well harm  _ Potter, _ now could I? Voldy’d’ve have had  _ my head _ if I’d damaged his goods, and the Weasel boy would’ve cracked under the strain, gone mad or worse in  _ seconds!” _ She points a finger at Hermione, chest heaving.  _ “Someone _ had to be tortured for them to believe the sword was real.  _ And it had to be you. _ Surely you can understand that.”

Hermione’s stare becomes murderous.

“What a nice excuse for torturing me when we  _ both _ knew I had done  _ nothing _ to deserve it. And who even  _ really _ knows what happened that night?” She begins to count off on her fingers. “Narcissa, who would never do anything to implicate you in any further crimes. Lucius, now serving a life sentence. And Rodolphus, who’s dead. No one who  _ could _ or  _ would _ testify.” She hisses out a frustrated breath. “The Ministry never even knew. How perfectly  _ convenient.” _

_ “And you think something would be different if the Ministry  _ had _ known?” _ Bellatrix retorts, trying not to shout in the small space. “Everything I did during the War, I did in the service of the Order. The Ministry knows that.” She crosses her arms and stares at Hermione, defiant. “I would have been absolved all the same. Nothing would be different.”

Hermione stands up in a rush, the conjured stool clattering on its legs in her wake.

“‘Nothing would be different’?” She looks at Bellatrix like she wants to slap her.  _"EVERYTHING _ would be different! People would  _ know! Someone _ would know! I wouldn’t have—” she begins to choke on her words, her body expelling them like a poison. “I wouldn’t have to keep—” her legs give out on her, and she collapses back down to the stool, bracing herself against the wall behind her. “I wouldn’t have to carry—the  _ shame—” _ her own hiccuping sobs steal the rest of her words, and she unconsciously cradles her left arm as her body is wracked with grief, curling inward on itself to become as small as possible.

Bellatrix, unseen, stares at Hermione’s current state with confusion that, gradually, makes its way to a grim resignation.

She speaks very quietly. Almost as if she doesn’t want to believe her own words.

“...You still have it.”

Hermione’s crying is now silent, but no less intense. “What?” she croaks, her voice wet with tears.

“The mark.” Bellatrix swallows.  _ “My _ mark.”

Hermione reads this as cruel. As a game. She looks back up at Bellatrix, furious in her agony, her face damp and her eyes red.

“So, what, you just fucking  _ forgot about it _ until now? You  _ forgot _ about permanently branding me with that  _ horrible word—” _

_ “—Of course I didn’t  _ **_forget!_ ** I just thought—no one ever mentioned it again, and you never came to me about it, so I just—I assumed you had...I assumed you’d found a way to heal it, or gotten help from someone else who could.” She breathes out a small, surprised  _ ha _ at herself. “I...haven’t thought about it in years.” She looks back at Hermione, having truly believed that she’d done no permanent harm, that the torture performance had been worth it to maintain her cover. “It was a calculated risk. I trusted that you had a handle on it, being the  _ Brightest Witch of Her Age.” _

Hermione glares back with pure hatred in her eyes.

_ “How nice for you. _ Well. I didn’t. I couldn’t fix it, and I can’t bear to tell anyone who could even  _ try _ to help, so it looks like I’m stuck with it.” She unconsciously grips her cursed arm a little more tightly with her right hand. “Another thing you  _ got away with.” _

Bellatrix just stares at her, expression inscrutable. Hermione buries her head in her hands, mumbling to herself as she lets out a long, measured breath.  _ “When _ will this fucking  _ lift  _ start moving again?”

The silence between them is heavy. Thick. Hermione thinks it might suffocate her.

Bellatrix, having come to a decision, takes a half-step forward and holds out her hand.

“Show it to me.”

Hermione’s head shoots back up so quickly that she nearly gets whiplash.

_ “What?!” _

Bellatrix stretches her hand out further, but steps no closer. “The Mark. Let me see it.”

Hermione stands up in a hurry, this time sending the conjured stool spinning off to one side. She backs herself up against the wall behind her.

“No! Absolutely not! Are you  _ insane? _ I wouldn’t let  _ you, _ of all people,  _ anywhere  _ **_near_ ** _ it!” _

Bellatrix purses her lips. “Granger, don’t be a fool. If  _ you _ couldn’t figure it out, then the only person who can fix it is me.  _ Let me see it.” _

“No.  _ No! _ I can’t—I won’t let you—” Hermione begins hyperventilating now, well on her way to a panic attack, and when the lift jolts back on-course with a shudder, Bellatrix grasps her upper arms to steady her as she stumbles. Hermione immediately shoves Bellatrix off of her as if her touch had burned, leaving the lift rocking from side to side as Bellatrix hits the opposite wall with great force.

_ “DON’T TOUCH ME!” _

“I was just—” the lift arrives at the proper floor now, and Hermione bolts before the doors are even finished opening. Bellatrix just stares after her as she flees, paying no attention to the people in the atrium quizzically watching Hermione round a corner and disappear from sight.

“...I was just trying to help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a nsfw prompt, and yet here they are, screamin' and cryin'. idk. don't look at me. i'm just the author, **i** don't know what they're doing.
> 
> you may be wondering, "okay, so she didn't want to torture Ron into insanity, so what about the Longbottoms, then?" listen. don't ask me things. bellatrix was framed or was on her lunch break at the time. idk.


	2. it is so honest and true

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look. _look._ i'm incapable of shutting up, alright? I know you didn't need to know what Hermione's been up to for the past ten years, _BUT I HAD TO TELL YOU,_ because my hubris is a _terminal illness_ and it's _INCURABLE._
> 
> this chapter was not beta'd, if things are confusing or some mistakes made it through please understand that you are to pretend you did not see them and that everything made sense

> _Five Days Later_

Head Auror Trecorum groans with a stretch that sends audible _pops_ all up and down his spine, then casts a quick _Tempus_ to check the time. 1613; plenty of time to get in one last sparring session to make sure he’s in tip-top shape before tomorrow’s joint operation in Barcelona.

A far cry from the state the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had been in before the War, the British Ministry of Magic’s Aurors are now considered the best in the world when it comes to combat, and their expertise in such a role means that it’s not uncommon for other Ministries to ask for their help when dealing with a situation that seems likely to break out into particularly vicious violence.

As far as anyone outside the DMLE knows, this is largely due to an intensified training regimen that relies on veterans of the Second Wizarding War giving lessons and demonstrations on a regular basis, getting the DMLE and the Auror Division in top shape with knowledge they’d acquired during their service. Trecorum could only guess as to why the DMLE Battlemaster had insisted that Kingsley hide the filling of the position from the other departments, but he isn’t complaining—being utilized for outside operations means that his people get to travel more than they’d ever had the opportunity to before, and the training they'd received over the years had been invaluable; literally life-saving on countless occasions.

Trecorum is a regular visitor to the sparring circle, an artificially large room secreted away in one of the more distant corners of the DMLE floor, housed in the same wing as the casting range. The casting range could be, and often was, used by anyone in the DMLE. The sparring circle could be used only under the direct supervision of the Battlemaster who would, depending on the needs of the participants, either referee sparring matches while offering advice on performance (whether the participants wanted advice or not), or serve as an opponent for training purposes.

The Battlemaster is relentless—vicious, sometimes—during sparring matches. The extensive and thorough warding on the sparring circle means that even lethal injuries are reduced to false wounds, and while the pain feels very real, it's all artificial—gone as soon as the match ends. He had asked, once, what kinds of wards they were, believing that the Battlemaster had merely refreshed the existing warding that predated them. The Battlemaster had just chuckled and said that they were wards they had invented, after the existing warding on the sparring circle was found to be, in their estimation, too weak to protect people from the kind of training they were going to be doing.

He had felt old even then, and was much older now, but he would hardly argue with the results—he was now in the best magical shape of his life, and over the past several years the Battlemaster had whipped the DMLE into a ruthlessly efficient miniature army.

Trecorum nods at his fellow officers respectfully as he slowly makes his way down the twisting hallways to the sparring circle, already both relishing and dreading the battle that awaited him there. He and the Battlemaster are colleagues who afford one another a mutual respect, but nothing more. For reasons he would never voice but was sure were implicitly understood, he keeps them at arm’s length. The way the Battlemaster fights reminds him of the most difficult duel he had ever fought, during the height of the War—against Bellatrix Lestrange. He’d felt victorious in the moment that he had managed to escape with his life, but when the reveal came out after the War that she had been on his side the entire time, his stomach dropped. He knew, immediately, intimately, that he had escaped because she had let him.

She could have killed him if she’d wanted to, and she had not wanted to. And that was all.

It was that realization that propelled him into training properly once the DMLE got a new Battlemaster—he would, if he could help it, never be at someone’s mercy like that again out in the field. He would survive a battle because he had won it, or not at all.

Perhaps the most useful skill he had learned, however, was the only one he wasn’t sure the Battlemaster was even aware that they were teaching. During the War, it had often been difficult to discern the appropriate level of force in the heat of a battle. Some opponents merely wished to distract or annoy while others truly meant to kill, and focusing attention and spellcasting energy on the former when the latter was infinitely more important was a good way to get killed.

Trecorum shivers involuntarily, thinking back on some of his matches against the Battlemaster. He knows that the extensive warding of the sparring circle means that the injuries are never real, only imagined. That even what would normally be a killing blow only leaves the victim briefly unconscious before the warding detects that the duel is over and neutralizes its effects.

But without the warding...well. During several of his duels against the Battlemaster...he’d seen the look that was in their eyes on other opponents during the War. On Dark Wizards and Witches coming at him and his people with everything they had.

The Battlemaster had sometimes wanted to kill him, and was only prevented from doing so by their own extensive and elaborate warding, turning killing blows into painful but harmless duel-ending blows.

After he’d gotten over how disconcerting it had been to come face-to-face with such clear killing intent from a purported ally, he had reasoned that such training was to its own benefit. Being able to see murderous intent in the eyes of your opponent was a skill that was normally impossible to effectively train in a safe way, and his ability to now recognize it instantly without having had to face the real possibility of death had saved his life more than once in the field, when he had to discern the motives of an opponent in a split-second. After he had quietly expressed this idea to his subordinates, they too had developed an ability to recognize lethal intent through sparring with the Battlemaster, and every one of them had at least one story about how being able to detect murder in the eyes of an opponent had saved their lives.

But to the Battlemaster? He never mentions it. He isn’t even sure whether the Battlemaster themselves is aware, consciously, of the murderous intent they so clearly feel during some sparring sessions. 

The Battlemaster becomes a different person when they fight; he assumes that the differences between how they carry themselves in and out of battle are specifically to keep opponents off-base, but he can’t really know just by guessing, and he is in no position to ask such a question of them. The two aren’t friends. In fact, if he really thinks about it, he isn’t sure whether the Battlemaster even really has friends. He certainly never sees any in their office, at least.

 _It’s a shame,_ Trecorum thinks as he rounds the final corner before the Battlemaster’s small office and prepares to knock on the open door frame. _No one fights like that without some serious internal demons. She could probably use a friend. I wonder what her war buddies are up to now._

He knocks quietly, just loudly enough to draw Battlemaster Granger’s attention from the paperwork she’s staring at. She looks like she hasn’t been sleeping well, and he wonders whether any residual exhaustion might give him an advantage in their upcoming duel. In a real fight, every advantage would have to be utilized. He knows that Granger won’t hold it against him—she expects nothing less from her students. Still, he feels a twinge of guilt at the idea of using her exhaustion against her.

 _Who takes care of_ **_you,_ ** _girl?_ He thinks before offering her a small smile and gesturing toward the sparring circle with a tilt of his head. She smiles back, small but genuine, and gestures for him to go out ahead of her while she prepares. Trecorum steps back and makes his way to his side of the sparring circle, already formulating strategies and counter-strategies.

 _I do hope you have friends, Granger,_ he thinks as he stretches and watches her make her way out of her office. Her movements are as precise as ever, but after training with her for nearly a decade, he knows her movements well enough to see that she’s tired. He smirks.

_But your personal life is not my problem._

* * *

Hermione always thought that, of the three members of the so-called _Golden Trio,_ she was the most likely to take a quiet retirement from public life and work a nice desk job in an office, whether at the Ministry or elsewhere. The rights of non-human magical beings have advanced dramatically in the past almost-ten years, and she can acknowledge that this is in large part due to her early post-war efforts. But she has nothing to do with the struggle now. The War may be long-over, but there are evildoers everywhere, and there will always need to be people trained to take them down.

The War had ended a decade ago. But as Hermione ruefully looks around her small office, all she can do is shake her head at where her life has ended up. War is all she has left.

  
After her chance encounter with Bellatrix in the lift five days ago, Hermione was feeling that truth more acutely than she had in years. Normally, her public persona was carefully controlled in every way. Movements, gestures, facial expressions—all of it deliberate, rigid, more prim and proper than she had ever been before the War. But rigid control over her own body was the only way she had found to control herself, _control her arm_ , and if that was what it took, well, then that was what she would do.

She had never wanted to end up like this. After the War, the Golden Trio had their whole lives in front of them. Given their choice of Ministry positions for their roles in ending the War, they had all happily accepted posts. Ron and Harry became Aurors, naturally, while Hermione gladly took over the vacant position of Director of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. No small number of eyebrows were raised both in and out of the department when Minister Kingsley appointed a fresh-faced twenty-year-old as head of the entire department, but her dedication to the role and her vocal desire to level the playing field between human and non-human magical beings quickly turned the department’s opinion around, and most of the people working under her were thrilled to be doing so.

It wasn’t easy, though. The War had left everyone with some form of injury; it just so happened that Hermione’s were rather more literal than she ever let on. Ron and Harry sometimes noticed her struggling, and suggested that she seek out a Healer for whatever her problem was. Hermione insisted that she was seeing a muggle therapist (she wasn’t), and they eventually let the issue drop. She had gotten better at hiding the side-effects of Bellatrix’s cursed mark on her, but she could only do so much. She could feel, acutely, that her emotions ran much closer to the surface than they had before, and that this was steadily becoming worse over the years. She knew, even without needing to ponder it, that without the influence of the cursed mark she never would have been reduced to a sobbing mess due to being stuck in a lift with Bellatrix Lestrange. She hated Bellatrix for being there, just as she hated herself for being unable to handle it.

She’d fled the lift last week as if it were on fire, hastily throwing a _Do Not Disturb - Important Meeting_ warning on her door before she silenced her office, barred the entrance, and then had a real, proper, full-on mental breakdown.

A few hours later, after she had no more tears to shed and her throat was hoarse from screaming, she had slowly stood up and cast a regimen of self-tidying spells she hadn’t needed to use in her own office in quite some time. While those did their work, righting shelves and reorganizing paperwork, she dragged herself to her desk and opened the bottom drawer, warded to open by no one else’s hand. She pulled out a muggle first-aid kit that she regularly refilled and sat down on the floor, her back resting against her desk, to get to work.

She'd gingerly removed her shirt, folding it carefully and setting it aside, then slowly unzipped the red satchel and spread it out before her. The first step, perhaps the most important, was to remove a well-worn piece of wood—she could, by now, clearly see the indentations of her own teeth—and place it in her mouth. Looking down at the existing bandaging covering her left forearm, she'd winced. Blood and pus could clearly be seen through several layers of bandaging—the worst the wound had looked in a while. Hermione had wondered how much of that had to do with her freakout moments before and how much was due to the injury’s temporary proximity to its creator. Heightened emotions always made the curse mark react, but she had never been that close to Bellatrix again since Malfoy Manor, so she had no previous experiences to base a proper hypothesis off of.

She'd unpinned the edge of the bandage, holding her breath when the loss of tension in the bandage caused the pieces to slide against one another ever-so-slightly. It hurt. Not too much, but more than a normal injury would have. Her breathing had been steady as she slowly unwound the ruined bandage, pausing when all that was left was to uncover the wound itself. The blood and pus seeping through had, as always, adhered the bandage to the wound. Hermione had taken a deep, steadying breath, held it in, and bit down on the wood as she pulled it off all at once.

The pain had been blindingly intense, but blessedly brief. Even through the spots in her vision and the sensation of her head swimming while her arm felt as if it were being flayed and salted, she had been able to hear her own muffled screams and feel hot tears dampening her cheeks. When her breathing was back under control, she'd opened her eyes and gasped. The mark always looked fresh to a degree, cursed to never heal, constantly oozing small amounts of blood and pus. When Hermione experienced heightened negative emotions—which happened more and more due to the influence of the mark itself—it pulsed and burned, oozing even more than normal. None of this was news; Hermione had been living with the injury for a third of her life.

But it had never looked like _this._ It had looked as if it had been carved in just today, raw and red and _pulsing,_ beating in time with her heart, dripping out its disgusting mix of blood and pus with every beat. The rancid smell of pus was intense, and had she not been so used to it by now, Hermione was certain she might have retched.

She conjured a bowl and gingerly held her arm out over it, unscrewing the cap from a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and taking in a deep breath to prepare for the agony of pouring it over the cursed wound. Peroxide is generally ill-advised for muggle wound care, she knew, because it destroyed new skin cells and encouraged scarring—but this was a cursed wound that would never heal enough to scar either way, so she had long-ago reasoned that it was superior to the technically preferable use of rubbing alcohol, which caused no such scarring but which hurt _much_ more.

Hermione had bitten down again as she poured, and this time, she was absolutely certain that the agony had left her blacked out for a few moments; when she came to, the bottle had clattered down to the floor and was spilling peroxide all over her rug. She righted the bottle with her right hand and quickly cast to clean up the spill, still holding her left arm over the bowl as her wound bubbled and sizzled menacingly. The worst, thankfully, was now over.

Hermione gingerly used a clean cloth to wipe over the wound, removing all sorts of detritus; dead skin, dried and fresh blood and pus, and stuck bits of bandage from the set that she had just ripped off. The wound had been more sensitive than usual that day as she gingerly rubbed her fingers over it to spread the cream, and she noted that the heat it gave off was intense.

After carefully bandaging and wrapping it once again, Hermione had vanished the dirty bandages, the bowl, and the dirty peroxide within it, placed the kit back in her drawer, and put her shirt back on. Her spells had finished cleaning her office, and she'd waved her wand to remove the _Do Not Disturb_ from her door as she pinned her hair back into place and dried the sweat and tears from her face.

This would all have been much easier if she could just magically clean and wrap the wound, of course, but she had discovered very early on during her experimenting that using any sort of magic at all on the wound—whether to clean it, disguise it, or try to fix it—caused body-wracking agony far worse than the pain of dressing and cleaning the wound the muggle way and simply hiding it under a long sleeve. Her research on curing the wound had become entirely theoretical, chalkboards lining the walls of her small apartment filling up with formulas and theories which were rarely actually tested out.

Trips to the beach were easily turned down after the War, and after a few excuses about having never really liked the water (a lie), they stopped coming. Whether it was genuinely unintentionally or another side-effect of the cursed mark, Hermione couldn’t say, but she began to turn down normal invitations, as well, and without truly meaning to, she had eventually isolated herself from all of her old friends.

Working in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had been all she’d wanted, after the War. Like with Ron and Harry’s Auror posts, they had all gotten what they wanted. Or so they’d believed. Ron had burned out after barely a year, realizing that he held no love for a warlike life; he resigned his post and now worked full-time helping George run Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes, where he was by all accounts a much happier man. Harry had lasted about twice as long before he, too, decided that the life of a Auror was not for him. After a couple years spent aimlessly traveling the world, he had accepted an offer to be an on-staff trainer for the seekers of the Falmouth Falcons. After his tutelage proved invaluable, he became an in-demand trainer for Quidditch seekers at all levels of play, and now made a comfortable living doing so wherever he was requested.

Hermione, despite the volatility she felt bubbling just below her skin after the war, felt that her passion could best be used to fight for the rights of her fellow magical beings, human and otherwise. Her temper was more likely to flare than it had been in her youth, and she easily attributed it to the cursed wound, but it wasn’t—she’d thought—something that should cause her much concern as long as she was aware of it. She sometimes duelled against Harry or Ron to let off some steam, but especially after they’d left the Ministry, they stopped finding much fun in it—partially because they wanted to leave that kind of life behind, and partially because Hermione’s reflexes had only gotten sharper and her duelling more unpredictable, making her victory a sure thing. Eventually, she stopped asking, and then she had accidentally stopped seeing any of them at all, so it soon ceased to matter.

So she turned her passion and ferocity toward her work. In addition to drafting legislation to improve the rights of non-human magical beings of all kinds, her push to rename the department had, after many heated debates both within the department and without, been approved. Hermione had managed to get the department renamed from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to the much-less-offensive Magical Beings Liaison Department—still a mouthful in its own way, but more than a shade better than referring to all non-magical beings as “creatures” and implying that they _needed_ regulating and controlling.

But her high wasn’t destined to last long. A few days later, she had been in her office with a subordinate—a horrible man who had resisted every one of her changes, fighting her tooth and nail, and presumably only staying on because he was a scant few years away from his retirement pension. He had slammed her office door shut behind him and gone on an impressive tirade, shouting about “knife-ears” this and “half-breeds” that, apparently wanting to make use of every horrible slur he knew while making his point, whatever it ended up being. In the midst of his slur-filled speech, the man had made the mistake of calling Hermione a _mudblood._

Hermione...well. She thought she had killed him.

She hadn’t, but the amount of damage she had managed to do in the blink of an eye was impressive, if also horrific. She’d stabilized him and screamed for the Healers before leaving him in their care and sprinting all the way to Kingsley’s office and handing in her wand, explaining what she had done and fully expecting to be charged with either murder or attempted murder.

Kinglsey subjected her to an interrogation just between the two of them, including an examination of her memory of the attack. He surprised her by not only refusing to charge her with anything, but by also offering her a job. The man would make a full recovery eventually, he told her, though, yes—if she hadn’t immediately stabilized him and called for help, he would have died. After a thorough round of healing and some follow-up physical therapy, he would be just fine.

What interested Kingsley _more_ was the speed and precision of Hermione’s attack; she had cast nearly a dozen spells in only a couple seconds, beginning from a sitting position without her wand having already been in her hand, and by the time the man realized he was under attack, he was already unconscious. The Minister revealed to Hermione that the Ministry was critically low on qualified duelists who were both willing and able to train the officers of the DMLE, much less the Aurors who worked above them. Anyone with the necessary experience was either dead or unwilling to reopen old wounds by training people to fight. Hermione, he reasoned, clearly had the skillset he was looking for.

He also told her that she would be forced to resign from the MBLD. No Department Head could stay on after attacking a subordinate without being attacked first. He would permit her to name her successor and help them through the transition, but her retirement would need to be announced within the week. Kingsley made it a point, however, to note that his job offer was not a threat; she was under no obligation to take it. She would receive a small pension from her service with the MBLD that, when combined with the stipend most veterans of the War received, would be enough that she would never need to work again if she didn’t want to as long as she didn’t live extravagantly. But the position needed to be filled, and he thought she would be a perfect fit for it, so it was hers if she wished to accept. It would, he reasoned, also give her a healthy outlet for the pent-up aggression she was clearly still dealing with after the War.

Hermione wanted to say no. She wanted to take the opportunity to finally retire in peace, and spend her time researching things and writing scholarly articles. But almost without even realizing she was doing it, she’d just said, “Okay.”

And that was that. She quietly emptied her office over the next few days, spoke with her most trusted lieutenants to appoint a successor and make decisions about the progress of any ongoing projects. Then she waved them goodbye, made promises to visit that she never ended up following through on, and took her things to her new office on Basement 2 where the Department for Magical Law Enforcement was housed.

Her new office was smaller than her old one, tucked into a remote corner of the floor near the casting range and directly adjacent to the sparring circle.

Her first few matches were embarrassing, honestly. Afraid to hurt her opponents by casting as furiously as she knew she could after what had happened in the MBLD, she had held back and lost even against opponents she knew should hold no challenge. The sparring circle was warded to prevent injury, but Hermione had tested it privately after her arrival and discovered that it did no such thing when the speed, intensity, or malevolence of the spellcasting was enough to overcome the flimsy warding. She knew that the cursed wound had tainted her magic somehow, making even normal spells more malevolent than they were intended to be, and it was this knowledge that kept her from fighting at anywhere near her full potential. She practiced on her own against dummies, but when a human opponent was presented to her, she shrank bank and became a wilting opponent, easily bested and always underestimated.

She could tell that the department—especially Head Auror Trecorum—wondered what the devil Kingsley had been thinking, appointing someone fresh into their twenties as the DMLE Battlemaster. Hermione had insisted that one condition of her employment was that it would be secret; those outside the DMLE would be told she was on-staff as a wards and runes specialist, and the official Ministry Employee Directory would list her as such. DMLE officers not-so-privately jibed that she had done so because she knew she was unqualified for the position of Battlemaster, and merely wanted to pivot into a real job as a wards and runes specialist.

Hermione hated it. She hated losing, she _hated_ appearing weak, and she **_hated_** being underestimated. After she overheard some fresh Auror recruits being told that she wasn’t expected to be on-staff much longer given her uselessness, Hermione saw red. She turned down all duel requests for the remainder of the week, instead locking herself up in her office with books and charts and increasingly massive stacks of parchment. She stayed through the entire following weekend and painstakingly tore down the old wards, carefully replacing them from the ground-up with elaborate wards she had designed and intricately carved runes she herself had invented for this very purpose, building off of what had been there before and dramatically improving it. After only a moment’s consideration, she subtly extended the warding and rune carvings into her adjacent office—if she somehow lost her cool again, this would stop her from killing anyone, even if she wanted to. She decided not to mention to Kingsley that she’d felt such an extra step was necessary, and her spellcasting was subtle enough that no one was likely to notice.

The following Monday morning, Head Auror Trecorum came marching down to her office, demanding to know why she was refusing to fulfill her singular job duty and duel his Aurors and Officers. Hermione, freshly rested and ready to go, informed him with a grin that she had spent the week overhauling the “completely inadequate” protective warding around the sparring circle. She spun a lie that she had been deliberately losing in order to test the abilities of the DMLE’s employees and the protective warding both, and while that was a lie, it had enough truth in it that she felt no guilt at telling him so.

“My style of duelling is intense, Head Auror,” she’d said to him, standing from her desk and meeting him in her doorway. “The wards needed to be completely overhauled to protect both you and your employees. I would be happy to show you the fruits of my labor, if you’d like to duel me yourself.”

Trecorum had scoffed, making his way to the opposite end of the sparring circle and waiting for Hermione. She carried herself differently now, he noticed—she seemed more confident, more precise in her movements as she made her way to stand opposite him. Well. If her previous performance was any indication, feeling more confident would change little. He would win easily, and then he could go to Kingsley and finish their argument about how appointing a girl in her early twenties to train an entire department of Aurors and Officers many times her age was a stupid move. He held no ill will toward Hermione Granger; she was a war hero. But she was no Battlemaster, and he needed a real one to help train his department.

They faced one another at opposite ends of the circle, tipped up their wands, and took their battle stances; Hermione, as always, held her left arm tightly behind her back, bent at the elbow with her lower arm parallel to her waist, pressed tightly into her lower back. He took a half-step forward, raised his wand to cast a flurry of stunning spells, and…

...blinked dumbly as he looked up at Hermione’s grinning face from where he was lying prone on the ground.

“Hello again, Auror. Would you care to go again?”

He shook his head, unsure what exactly had just happened and sure it had been a trick somehow, but repeated attempts yielded the same results. Sometimes he held his own for a while, other times he was knocked out—literally—immediately, but he always lost. Bringing in some of his subordinates had much the same effect—by all accounts, she had been telling the truth, and she was soundly trouncing his entire department.

Well. That was that, then. The DMLE had a new Battlemaster. At the end of what had been a very intense morning of duel after duel after duel, they broke for lunch. On his way out, Trecorum gave Hermione—no, _Battlemaster Granger_ —an approving nod. She smirked and nodded back on her way into her office, where he hoped that she had some salves to treat the muscle aches they were all surely going to be feeling in the next few hours.

* * *

And that was what Hermione had been up to for the past seven years or so. Her expert warding of the sparring circle had genuinely attracted the attention of others in the DMLE to a degree that she really _was_ used to consult on some of the more complicated cases that involved wards or runes, so at least her fake job title was no longer a complete lie. But on most days, she was left to her own devices in her office, called upon only when someone wanted to spar or when the division as a whole was brought in for training or to top up their performance.

She loved it, sometimes. It was nice to feel needed, and it was good to get her aggressions—which only became more and more intense the longer she bore the cursed mark—out in a way that wouldn’t cause her opponents any permanent damage. But her arm was getting worse. At first, she merely held it tightly against her back during duels to keep it immobile and out of the way, to prevent her from moving it too much and getting distracted by the pain.

By now, she had designed an elaborate—and elaborately disillusioned—series of belt straps that she strapped her arm into which held it fast against her back, tightly kept in place until she manually unstrapped it, to keep her arm from moving about on its own.

Normally it did no such thing, other than involuntary twitching now and then which depended largely upon her state of mind. But now, if she was doing intense spellcasting—especially to the degree required of her in her role as DMLE Battlemaster—her left arm had a mind of its own, and would lash out at anything it could reach as if to tear and claw it apart with just the bare hand. And because duels were generally fought at a distance, that meant that her arm attacked _her,_ and that would simply not do.

So she strapped it down, and she’d been fighting in such a stance for so long that no one noticed the change from holding it behind her back to strapping it _to_ her back.

And yet...she was no closer to healing the accursed thing than she had been ten years ago. After her last attempt, just over a year ago, had left her in such a state that she was absolutely certain she was going to die alone in her empty apartment, she’d sworn to herself that she would not make another attempt until she was either _completely_ certain that it would work, or until she was prepared to die for her failure.

After her encounter with Bellatrix in the lift last week, she wasn’t sure which she would prefer anymore.

Hermione was very careful, after that day, to avoid any repeat occurrences. She had made sure to look at who was in the lift before she stepped in, and only once had passed up a lift because she saw the dark-haired witch’s mop of hair in the crowd. She hadn’t even lingered long enough for them to lock eyes—she’d just pivoted to the lift one spot over and waited for that, instead.

But she should have figured that she couldn’t avoid Bellatrix forever—her official position was listed in the Directory, after all. She supposed she should just feel grateful that Bellatrix had sent a note rather than coming down personally—she knew enough about Bellatrix to know that, especially as an Unspeakable, she would feel no need to make an appointment, and thus would not be able to be directed to Hermione’s fake office elsewhere on the floor. A piece of mail sent to her would find her wherever she happened to be, so _that,_ at least, could make its way to her real office by the sparring circle without giving away her real job.

  
Hermione stares at the sealed letter as if she expects it to burn her when she touches it. Perhaps she does. Perhaps it will. She hasn’t been sleeping well since her encounter with Bellatrix the week before, and she’s now more sure than ever that their encounter had negatively affected the curse mark. It was only now returning to its normal level of oozing and bleeding and hurting, having maintained its fresher, more _pulsating_ appearance for several days. She’s in no hurry to encounter the other woman again, but at least if it _does_ happen again, Hermione believes that she would be more prepared for it.

 _At least I won’t fucking_ sob _again, anyway._

_Probably._

She sighs, frustrated at herself about the entire situation, but at this moment, mostly because it was _just a letter,_ and _what is she so afraid of._

She gingerly reaches over and breaks the wax seal, unfolding the paper slowly, taking deep breaths all the while. Her left arm twitches.

> _Granger,_
> 
> _You have no reason to believe me, but I implore you to try. I am truly sorry._
> 
> _I never meant to cause lasting harm to you, during the war or otherwise. You had to believe that_ **_I_ ** _believed that you had been in my vault. If I had been reticent in my questioning, in questioning you the way I was_ **_expected_ ** _to question you, it would have been suspicious. I truly believed that, after the war, you would either seek me out to heal the injury or you would figure it out on your own. As I was never contacted and never heard from outside sources that the curse mark had come up, I assumed that you had done the latter._
> 
> _I did many things during the War that I regret, but seeing how it has continued to affect you, I hope that you understand that I regret nothing more than our interactions at Malfoy Manor._
> 
> _I understand that this will come as little consolation. I understand that not seeking you out to confirm that you had recovered, that not even thinking of Malfoy Manor for years, is a failing on my part. You have every right to hate me for the events of that night, and you have every right to hate me for not thinking of it in the intervening years._
> 
> _But even if you hate me, you have to admit that you are in need of my assistance. No one wounded with my knife—which, as you have surely discovered by now, was itself cursed—was not killed by something else shortly after. Even I cannot know the effects of a wound cursed by it persisting for ten years—even I cannot know what such an injury would do to the host. In that avenue, you are the expert here. But I know enough to know that you are in grave danger._
> 
> _I believe that you know this as well. I now know that being in my presence causes you great distress—another thing that I must apologize for. But if you have been unable to heal this wound, I guarantee you that I will be able to find a way._
> 
> _I am intimately familiar with the knife used to carve the mark, and while I cannot be specific, my work in the Department of Mysteries has uniquely qualified me to assist you._
> 
> _I hope you will accept my help. I shudder to consider the consequences if you continue to attempt to endure this on your own._
> 
> _Please respond. Time is of the essence._
> 
> _\- Bellatrix_

Hermione reads and rereads the letter several times. Bellatrix is right, she knows. Time is counting down, and Hermione has a very real worry that if the cursed wound is on her body for too much longer, not even Bellatrix could heal it. The only solution by that point may very well be to cut off her arm—and if even that somehow didn’t end the problem...well. It would probably kill her, one way or another. She’s staring at the letter now, not even reading it, when a quiet knock rouses her from her reverie.

She looks up and sees Head Auror Trecorum in her doorway. Right—he’s heading a team of Aurors heading to Barcelona tomorrow, it makes sense that he would want one last sparring match to top up his skills before they left. He smiles at her, tilts his head to indicate his wish for her to join him in the sparring circle.

She likes Trecorum. He doesn’t pity her, he respects her abilities, and he doesn’t try to be her father. She smiles back at him and nods, gesturing for him to go out to the sparring circle and wait for her.

Hermione closes the door behind him after he steps out, and retrieves her harness from a nearby cabinet. It was hard to put on, at first, because it was so heavily disillusioned. By now she hardly even has to think about it, strapping her arm in as she walks back to her desk to put Bellatrix’s letter in the same warded drawer as her first aid kit.

Trecorum audibly pops his shoulders as Hermione approaches the circle. As much as he hates having his ass handed to him, he very much enjoys his matches with Battlemaster Granger. Watching her practice her craft—the art of war, as it were—is a gift. Considering she has consistently refused his regular offers (some might call them pleas) to join the department as an Auror, and considering how unsure he is that she even interacts with people outside of work, he considers it entirely possible that no one outside the DMLE has ever _really_ seen the transformation between the way she carries herself socially and the way she carries herself in battle.

He eagerly watches the transformation now, admiring Battlemaster Granger’s transition from woman to warrior. She slowly approaches the circle, posture rigid, her right arm held loosely at her side and her left held rigidly behind her back. He’s often wondered why she does this—with the way she moves in battle, surely her balance would be more even if her left arm was free to help her keep it, no?

As they raise their wands to one another, her posture changes completely. She holds her wand loosely in her hand, her arm below the elbow angled downwards at an angle that leaves her wand pointed at his knees. Her knees are bent enough to allow her to spring in any direction with minimal additional effort, and her torso is bent forward to absorb the recoil from blocking and casting spells. She waits for Trecorum to make the first move.

He moves his wand as little as necessary to perform the necessary gestures, allowing the spell to be more subtle than traditional full-arm movements—a trick he learned from her—and sends a _Diffindo_ her way. She spins out of the way effortlessly, and with loose movements of only the fingers of her wand hand, twirls and turns the wand in the necessary gestures to cast a flurry of offensive spells back in his direction. He would never truly understand how she could cast so quickly—she had tried to show him how to hold his wand loosely enough to manipulate it with nothing more than slight movements of his fingers, but he found his hands always got so sweaty that he was more likely to drop it than to successfully cast any spells, even after years of trying.

Trecorum manages to block the first two spells with a hasty _Protego,_ slide to the side to avoid the third, and fail to notice the fourth until nearly the last second, throwing up a second _Protego_ that just barely catches a _Bombarda_ that had been on target to blow up his head. Simulated pain or not, that always _hurt._

He grins at his Battlemaster. She grins back.

The match is on.

* * *

Hermione is relentless. Normally, when her opponent wanted to tap out after a round or two, she let them. But tonight—well, if she’s honest, she feels like she needs to run herself ragged to get any sleep after reading Bellatrix’s letter. She convinces Trecorum to face her again, and again, _and again,_ until they’re both struggling to stand from the exertion. When she spins in place to dodge an _Expelliarmus_ and responds with an _Expelliarmus_ of her own, a _Rictumsempra,_ a _Levicorpus_ and a _Petrificus totalus,_ Trecorum gives up. Hermione catches his wand in the same hand that holds her own, the wards cancel out all of the spells affecting him, and she lazily casts an _Arresto momentum_ to keep him from being hurt when he crashes to the floor. He laughs even as he struggles to catch his breath, accepting his wand as she holds it out hilt-first and slowly standing up to clap her on the shoulder.

“Gods above,” he says between breaths, “we’ll see if I can even get out of _bed_ in time to get to Barcelona!”

Hermione, back to standing rigidly and up to her full height, smiles at him apologetically as her own breaths rush in and out. “I apologize for running you so ragged. I’ve been dealing with some...stressors lately.”

“Aye, I’ve…” he hesitates to acknowledge her statement, trying to weigh how much of a breach of his arms-length policy it would be to acknowledge her apology. He sighs at himself—he’s not a monster, he can offer condolences once in a while. “...I’ve noticed you seem...not well-rested.” She nods absentmindedly in response, sticking her wand to sit behind her ear.

“Indeed.”

She turns to walk back to her office, and he follows behind.

“Well, Granger...I hope you have someone who can help you decompress off the clock.” It’s the best he can do. He wishes her no harm, but he needs to make it clear that he is not that someone. She looks at him and nods in grateful understanding as she steps back into her office.

“Thanks, Trecorum.” She smiles tiredly. “Go get some rest, you’ll all need to be on your best for Barcelona. I’ll see you when you get back.”

He nods back, _Accio_ ing his coat and bag and holstering his wand. “You, too, Granger. Get some rest yourself.” He leaves her alone, the only person left on the floor.

  
  
Another hour later, when Hermione finally makes her way to the lift bank, she can’t even bring herself to be surprised when it opens and Bellatrix is the only occupant. Bellatrix, for her part, looks quite surprised to see Hermione still in the building.

“I was in Kingsley’s office,” she offers, lamely, to reassure Hermione that she’s not here deliberately to seek her out. Her eyes dart down to Hermione’s left hand—holding her letter. Bellatrix purses her lips and looks back up at her, taking a step back to make room in the lift. Offering without demanding. The lift doors begin to close, and Bellatrix visibly sighs as she accepts that Hermione isn’t ready yet. Hermione, against her better judgment, rolls her eyes at herself and slides in before the doors finish closing. Bellatrix backs up against the left wall, giving Hermione as much space as possible in the minuscule lift.

They travel down the floors without speaking. _Basement Level 3 - Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Basement Level 4 - Magical Beings Liaison Department. Basement Level 5 - Department of International Magical Cooperation._

Basement Level 6 never comes—when it takes a bit too long to _ding_ to the next floor, Hermione’s stomach sinks, and she knows what’s happening even before the lift shudders to a stop.

They’re stuck. Again.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” Hermione hisses. “Not. _Again.”_

“Well. Isn’t that just your luck,” Bellatrix can’t help but say. Hermione glares at her.

“It’s after-hours. We’ll be lucky if anyone is still even _here_ to check the wards.” She leans against the right wall, her exhaustion catching up with her. “We could be here until morning.”

“I want to give you a little bit of time to come around to accepting my help,” Bellatrix says from her post on the opposite wall, “but, well, I’m not going to turn down a captive audience.” Before Hermione can panic, Bellatrix raises her arms to show that her hands are empty. “I’m not going to _make_ you cooperate,” she continues. “But if you keep putting this off, it _will_ kill you. There’s no telling how long we could be stuck in the lift.” She tilts her head to indicate Hermione’s arm, which the other witch is unconsciously cradling against herself. “You may as well at least let me see it.”

Hermione looks away, taking deep breaths. She wills the panic she feels creeping up within her, unbidden, to _fuck right off._ She knows, now, that the proximity of Bellatrix to the cursed mark she created has something to do with why she feels so damn _weepy,_ whether that’s on a magical level or a psychological one. She can, for her part, appreciate that Bellatrix now seems to be aware of this, and appears to be trying to be a great deal more sensitive to her effect on the other woman. Hermione turns her head to look at her, and can see an expression on Bellatrix’s face that, if she’d been asked to imagine what it would look like, would have no idea how to even conceptualize.

Concern.

Hermione sighs with her entire body. She’s just so _god damn tired._ She locks eyes with the other woman and gives her a tiny, minuscule nod.

That’s enough for Bellatrix. She slowly, so as to not startle Hermione, conjures a bench for Hermione to sit on, then another right across from it for herself. Hermione nearly collapses down onto the bench, and Bellatrix scoots her own so that their knees are almost touching.

Hermione takes a deep breath, biting her lip as she slowly offers up her cursed arm. She meets Bellatrix's eyes. Her expression asks for Hermione's permission. Hermione offers another small nod, then resolutely focuses her gaze at the wall behind Bellatrix.

Bellatrix gingerly, almost without touching it, uses one hand to support Hermione’s arm while she uses the other to roll up her sleeve. When she rotates Hermione’s bandaged arm to look at the mark’s location, she can’t help but gasp audibly, which draws Hermione’s attention to it. Hermione doesn’t gasp, but she can’t help how her entire body tenses in response to what she sees.

She had known that pushing herself—her magic—the way she had tonight with Trecorum would have negative side-effects. That her arm would probably look as bad as it had last week when she had torn apart her office. But it doesn't.

It looks _worse._

The bandage has soaked through several layers, as before, but _unlike_ before, it's _thick._ There's so much blood and pus that the outermost layer of bandaging is still damp. Hermione grimaces as she looks at it.

“...It’s not normally so...like this.” She gulps, already dreading having to remove this bandaging. “It’s not normally quite so dramatic. I just...exerted myself quite a lot this evening. Magically.”

Bellatrix chuckles quietly. “Those must be some very _intense_ wards and runes you’re doing research on, then.”

Hermione only _mmm_ s in response, neither confirming nor denying Bellatrix’s assumptions about her job. Bellatrix reaches her hand to uncouple the bandage pin, then hesitates for a moment. Hermione doesn’t look up, but nods when she notices Bellatrix’s hesitance.

She tugs the pinning free, and Hermione hisses unwillingly as the bandages loosen and flex around her arm. Bellatrix pulls her hands back, Hermione assumes to move the bench to get a better angle, but then she sees the slight movement of Bellatrix’s wand in the corner of her vision.

 _“NO!!!”_ she shouts, almost involuntarily, and shoots forward to grasp the wand with her free right hand to twist it to the side and prevent whatever spell Bellatrix had just been about to cast. They topple over together, Hermione twisting instinctively to keep her left arm in the air and avoid crushing it between them, leaving her right arm crushed between them instead.

There isn’t far to fall in such an already cramped space, and their legs get tangled together as Hermione topples them both over onto the floor, their legs propped up on Bellatrix’s bench and their torsos crushed together, Bellatrix’s head propped up in the corner. Bellatrix’s eyes are wide with surprise as the lift rocks slightly from side to side.

“...Careful, Granger,” she says, quietly, slowly extracting her wand from Hermione’s hand but putting it somewhere in her wild mess of curls.

Hermione is acutely aware of everywhere their bodies are touching. She can’t even remember when her body was last in so much contact with another human being.

“S-sorry…” she says, trying to slide her legs off of the bench so she can get up without lowering her left arm. Bellatrix slides her legs out from under her, bracing Hermione’s free arm so she can pivot them both back onto their respective benches. Hermione lands back on her bench with an _oof,_ still holding her left arm aloft to keep it from hitting anything.

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Bellatrix says quietly as she sits back down across from Hermione. “I was just going to clean—”

“—n-no magic,” Hermione stammers as her heart rate returns to normal and she again lowers her arm into Bellatrix’s waiting hands. She flicks her eyes back to Bellatrix’s before again looking at the wall behind her. “You can’t use magic on it. It reacts...poorly.”

Bellatrix grimaces. “None at all? How have you been cleaning it, then? How have you been...trying to heal it?”

“The muggle way,” Hermione shrugs, answering the first question but not the second. “Hydrogen peroxide, antibacterial cream, warm water.”

 _“‘Hydrogen peroxide’?”_ Bellatrix asks with a smirk that Hermione can hear in her voice. “Are you sure that’s not a spell?”

Hermione lets out an amused exhale. “It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as a spell would. I’m sure.”

“Well, then,” Bellatrix says as she begins to slowly unwind the bandaging, revealing layer after horrifying layer of soggy, blood-and-pus soaked wrapping until only the bandage in direct contact with the wound remains. Hermione holds her free hand to hover over Bellatrix’s, indicating she should wait.

“I hope this will work,” she says as she retrieves her wand from behind her ear. “Uh... _Accio first aid kit.”_ They wait in silence for several moments, Bellatrix wondering what ‘First Aid’ is beyond, perhaps, what it sounds like, when the red satchel shows up in front of the grate, banging against it in a vain attempt to come inside. “Ah, _hell,”_ Hermione murmurs. “How am I to get it inside…”

Bellatrix stands and takes hold of a crossbar on the right side of the closed gate, takes in a breath, and pulls. Slowly, laboriously, the gate is pulled open just enough for the kit to zoom into Hermione’s waiting hand. Bellatrix lets go of the crossbar, letting the gate slam shut again with enough force to send the lift rocking back and forth once more. Hermione lets out a small gasp at the sensation. _Wow._ Bellatrix is strong.

Having resumed their positions, Hermione slowly unrolls the kit next to her and pulls out the well-worn wooden bite guard. As she moves to put it in her mouth, she can see Bellatrix’s expression turn from confusion to horror as she realizes what it is—and, moreover, how well-used it appears to be. Hermione, unwilling to look at Bellatrix during this next step, takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. After a moment she nods, letting Bellatrix know she can rip off the bandage.

“Quickly, all at once, “ she says, speaking around the bite guard, realizing Bellatrix might not know how to best remove a mundane bandage without magic. “Pull it off all at once.”

Bellatrix nods, though Hermione can’t see it, and moves to grip a free corner on the far side of the bandage. She pauses. Hermione is shaking—from fear or some other emotion, Bellatrix doesn’t know. She purses her lips.

_This poor girl._

She slowly slides her left hand, currently supporting Hermione’s left forearm, down toward her wrist. After a moment’s consideration she moves it further, sliding it into Hermione’s open hand, gripping it just enough to keep holding her arm up.

Hermione’s hand twitches and her brows furrow, then she remains motionless. Just as Bellatrix is about to move her hand back, Hermione’s hand closes around it. She can’t smile through the bite guard, so she just nods jerkily. Bellatrix nods back again, unseen, and grips the far corner of the bandage.

They take in a large breath at the same time, and hold it. Bellatrix mentally counts to three and pulls.

Bellatrix has no doubt that if Hermione were a physically stronger person, her left hand would be broken right now. 

She’s gripping Bellatrix’s hand as if her life depends on it, and even through the bite guard, her agonized screams are piercing enough to leave a ringing in their ears.

 _“Gods above,”_ Bellatrix whispers, transfixed by the mark. Hermione loosens her death grip on Bellatrix’s hand, heaving breaths sending bits of spittle flying as she wipes sweat from her brow with the back of her free hand. She locks eyes with Bellatrix, looking as if she had just been put through a round of _Crucio._ Bellatrix frowns at the sight.

“You should have come to me.” She shakes her head, looking back at the mark. It’s raised, raw, red, oozing, pulsing. The veins surrounding it are raised as well, as if they’re inflamed. She grits her teeth, confronted with the fruits of her handiwork. “You didn’t have to live with this.”

“You’ll have to forgive me for not assuming you would have been _receptive_ to a plea for help,” Hermione says through gritted teeth, having moved the bite guard down to her lap. “Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort’s right-hand madwoman, pureblood supremacist extraordinaire.” She shakes her head and looks back at the wall. “Double agent or not, that reputation’s enough to keep any muggleborn away. Especially when all you’ve done after the War is hide away in the Department of Mysteries.”

“...Black.”

“What?”

“As if I’d keep that filthy, horrible man’s last name any longer than I needed to. I took back my maiden name as soon as the War was over.”

“And give up the riches you’d get as his widow? That seems uncharacteristic for a pureblood.”

Bellatrix could only laugh at that, a loud, full-body laugh that easily overwhelmed the small space.

“I have more than enough money from my own family to need any of _his,_ thank-you-very-much. All the same, I wouldn’t have been permitted to access any of the Lestrange money, per Gringotts policy.” Hermione’s questioning look—still directed at the wall—is answered with a gentle nudge of Bellatrix’s knee against her own. Bellatrix chuckles darkly.

“Come off it, Granger— _who do you think killed him?”_

Hermione’s brows lower in understanding. _I never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it._ Bellatrix can gather what she’s thinking and nods in response.

“Indeed. Rodolphus was a despicable man. He deserved the sticky end he came to, trust me. Now,” she indicates Hermione’s left arm, still held aloft between them, “ _what_ are we going to do about _this?”_

Hermione swallows. “I need to clean it—the brown bottle there—but beyond that, well.” She looks at Bellatrix now, expressionless. “I don’t know. I haven’t tried to heal it in nearly a year.” She shrugs. “It reacts more...negatively...every time I try, no matter how much research I’ve done to try and get it right. The last time, I was absolutely certain it was going to kill me.” She looks down at the pulsating monstrosity that has become her lower arm. “The next time,” she says, very quietly, “...I’m absolutely certain that it will.”

Bellatrix knows that look. Hermione is bone tired in a way that few others could understand—resigned to a meaningless death, suffered alone, unloved, unmourned.

Well. Not if Bellatrix has anything to say about it. She got Hermione in this mess—it was her responsibility to get her back out. If Hermione couldn’t figure this out on her own, then _surely_ they could do it together. The two _Brightest Witches of Their Ages?_ As far as she was concerned, the mark didn’t stand a chance.

“I can’t fix this in the lift,” she says to Hermione. “I need my notes, my things. Probably _your_ notes, as well. And a proper workshop.” She implores Hermione to look at her. “You’ll need to come to Black Manor. It has everything we’ll need.”

Hermione goes rigid at the suggestion. To be at Bellatrix’s mercy in a stuck lift in a moment of weakness was one thing. To be her guest, in her home, at her mercy in a very different place, in a very different way? Hermione's brave enough to admit to herself that she's afraid to do it.

Bellatrix feels the tension in the lift. “You can tell whomever you’d like,” she offers as consolation. “Where you’ll be, and with whom. You don’t have to feel trapped. It isn’t a prison.”

Hermione laughs, unbidden, at the offer. Tears of a very different sort prick at the corners of her eyes, falling to her legs when she shakes her head. “There’s no one.” She looks back at Bellatrix now, chuckling without amusement. “There’s no one to tell.”

The look of pity Bellatrix gives her makes anger bubble up deep inside her chest, and though she can’t keep it from showing on her face, she manages to choke it down enough to keep from lashing out. Instead, she looks back at the wall and replaces the bite guard, wordlessly conjuring a bowl and placing it under her arm. When she casts the spell, Bellatrix watches the cursed mark _pulse_ more viciously, just once, and a fresh trickling of blood begins to pool within the letters. Hermione, used to the mark pulsing whenever she uses magic, doesn’t even react anymore. She just reaches for the bottle and unscrews it one-handed, handing it to Bellatrix before using her free hand to grip the edge of the bench.

“You’ll want to saturate it,” she says around the guard. “The bottle’s nearly empty. Use all that’s left.”

Bellatrix sniffs at the bottle’s open mouth, expecting a sharp smell, and is puzzled by the total lack of any scent at all.

“Hydrogen peroxide is mostly water,” Hermione offers by way of explanation. “The bottle is opaque to keep the solution from turning into water completely.” She knows Bellatrix won't quite understand—muggle chemistry is quite different from magical potioneering and alchemy—but nevertheless feels compelled to explain. To express that she knows details about the things she's using.

“If it’s mostly water,” Bellatrix says, suspiciously, eyeing the wood piece in Hermione’s mouth, “does it hurt very little?”

Hermione sighs humorlessly.

“If only.”

Preemptively gripping Bellatrix’s hand more tightly once again, she nods and closes her eyes to prepare for the pour. Bellatrix hesitates very briefly, then slowly moves the bottle to hold it over the mark. After another internal count of three, she upends the bottle and pours.

Bellatrix isn’t sure what the _crack_ she heard immediately after had been—either the wooden bite guard cracking as Hermione crushed it between her teeth, or the bones in her hand shattering as Hermione obliterated them. But the thought is quickly replaced by an awareness that Hermione is screaming, full-tilt, in a way that very much reminds her of how the girl had writhed and screamed on the floor of Malfoy Manor all those years ago. If she didn’t know any better, if she were an outside observer looking in, she’d have thought that Hermione was being _Crucio_ ed at this very moment.

She moves closer, careful to keep Hermione’s left arm over the bowl as the wound bubbles and sizzles wickedly, and pulls her in to hold her head in the cradle between her neck and her shoulder. Hermione is still screaming, still gripping, and tears fall freely from her clamped-shut eyes, quickly soaking Bellatrix’s dress and chest. She rubs her free hand over Hermione’s back, making what she hopes are comforting shushing noises, though she’s not sure Hermione can even hear them over her own screams.

“You’re strong,” Bellatrix says, softly, turning her head to speak directly into Hermione’s exposed ear. “You’re so strong.”

They stay like that for a while, Hermione’s screams giving way to sobs, then to silent crying, before tapering off into labored breaths that eventually return back to normal. Hermione rocks back to lean against the wall, sniffling self-consciously as she wipes her face with a cloth from the first aid kit.

“Sorry,” she says, wiping down the bite guard and placing it back in the kit. It has a crack in it; she’ll have to remember to _Reparo_ that later.

Bellatrix takes a cloth, wets it with a small _Aguamenti,_ and slowly begins to wipe down the cursed mark. Hermione flinches, but doesn’t scream again.

“I _will_ say, it’s been quite some time since I had a woman sobbing all over my tits,” Bellatrix says wryly, trying to inject some levity into the small space. Hermione chokes on her own spit in surprise, burying her head in her free hand when she can’t keep from laughing.

 _“Oh, my god,”_ she mumbles to herself, shaking her head at the entire situation. “Ridiculous.”

The silence _does_ feel more comfortable after that, and Bellatrix continues her ministrations carefully as Hermione wordlessly picks up the tube of antibacterial cream and squeezes some out into Bellatrix’s hand.

“I want to help you,” Bellatrix almost whispers, shocked by how warm the cursed mark feels as she rubs the cream over it. “You shouldn’t have had to do this alone.” She lowers Hermione’s arm into her lap, wiping the last of the cream off of her fingers and taking Hermione’s left hand in both of her own. “I apologize for not seeking you out before it got to this point, but let me help you now.” She dips her head to force Hermione to look at her. “I _know_ that I can fix this. Let me try. Come to Black Manor.” She reaches her left hand up to brush a stray lock of hair behind Hermione’s ear.

_“Please.”_

Hermione looks back at the wall again, sucking in a breath and holding it. She lets it out slowly, breathing through her nose, and gives the smallest nod possible.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ch3 may very well be even longer than this one to fit everything into one final chapter, sorry [am i? no.]
> 
> thanks for the kudos and comments, gays! love ya

**Author's Note:**

> X
> 
> [we have a whole discord for this nonsense, if you would like to roll around in the trash with us](https://discord.gg/rAKhWJQ)


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